Netiquette and Ethics Regarding Digital Education Across Institutions: A Narrative Review

Information Technology (IT) has made rapid advancement since the turn of this century. Ergo the scope and extent of IT has also grown, resulting in increase in the number of internet users, who have differing reasons for using the IT resources. The users of this IT revolution include students worldwide; who interact with technology based on their needs, with relative ease and have found the whole experience enriching. Progress in IT has not only changed the way humans interact with technology but has also influenced the way of interaction between the people. The interaction online is mostly informal and comes without set guidelines and compounded with the relative anonymity provided by internet, also it has complicated an individual’s ability to interact in a respectful and responsible way. The problems relating to internet safety arise from such interactions. Flame wars and cyberbullying are some of the other risky behavioural interactions displayed online and can lead to severe consequences. The unethical use of IT resources in the form of plagiarism, piracy, identity theft etc also questions the moral of an individual. Whilst there may be some idea, multitude of issues regarding Netiquette and ethical use of IT resources are often poorly understood and the knowledge imparted is also fragmented. Moreover, contemporary educators are much in need of such information. Thus, there is a need to include and summarise current priority areas that relate to etiquette and ethics in digital education.